Healthy Swaps-No Sufferin' Succotash

The ultimate guide to having your cake and eating it too (continued).

A word made famous by Sylvester the Cat, succotash is a traditional, American side dish made of lima beans and corn kernels. Sweet, buttery, and easy on the mouth, it's a high-fiber comfort food, but can be made more diabetes friendly with some substitutions.

Lima beans have a relatively low glycemic index value (32, and under 55 is considered low), and a half-cup (of frozen baby limas) contains 18 grams of carbohydrate, 5 grams of fiber, and 6 grams of protein. A perfect stand-in for limas, however, is the green soybean known as edamame. Generally available frozen, shelled or in the pod, these beans are very similar to lima beans, but a half-cup contain 10 grams of carbs, 4 grams of fiber, 11 grams of protein, and are an excellent supply of vitamin C, calcium, and iron. Green soybeans also contain all the amino acids needed to make a complete protein, and all of this means they are a very decent substitute for meat.

Instead of corn in your succotash, use diced, sauted summer squash and yellow pepper. You'll end up with a delicious side dish that looks just like succotash, with the same sweet and buttery flavors and textures, but a lot less impact on your sugar.

by
Brenda Bell
As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the benefits that made it cost-effective for me to go with the real healthcare (HSA) plan rather than the phony (HRA) plan is that my company is now covering "preventative" medicines at $0 copay. The formulary for these, as stated by CVS/Caremark (my pharmacy benefits provider), covers all test strips, lancets, and control solutions. I dutifully get my doctor to write up prescriptions for all of my testing needs, submit...